Episode 8: Filmmaker, Sam Feder

SAM FEDER  is an award-winning director and producer whose films explore the intersection of visibility and politics along the lines of race, class, and gender in trans lives, while working towards higher ethical standards in filmmaking. His current film, Disclosure (streaming now on Netflix), which world-premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2020 to high acclaim, thoroughly examines the history of transgender representation in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender.

His previous film, Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger—portrait of trans icon Kate Bornstein—was named one of the best documentaries of 2014 by The Advocate, and won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, among many other best feature film awards. His films were most notably programmed by the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CPH:DOX, MOMA PS-1, The British Film Institute, The Hammer Museum, and were featured in hundreds of film festivals globally.

In this episode, Sam reflects on the mechanisms of coming out as he navigates his family, friends, and queer community, and discusses the paradox of trans visibility today, which led to the creation of Disclosure.